This is the way the world is, some people rejoice and some people worry. The same thing, for different people, will have different results. JD.com announced its 2022 financial report, and surprisingly, JD.com not only exceeded the trillion mark in revenue for the first time, but also approached 30 billion in annual profit for the first time.
Last year, Mr. Liu began emphasizing open source and cut salaries. Liu Qiangdong also vigorously controls JD.com's operating costs. In the past, Liu Qiangdong had never done such a thing, because he always thought that when JD.com became bigger, profits would naturally come up.
JD.com was founded in 2003, and in 2006 JD.com got the first investment of Today's Capital, and since then JD.com has caused controversy because of its crazy burning of money and losses. After JD.com went public in 2014, it still did not achieve profitability. Many people are waiting for the day Liu Qiangdong said, waiting for the day when JD.com's profits explode. But in fact, JD.com has been in business for 20 years, and this day has still not come.
Now Liu Qiangdong can't wait, the external environment is changing, competitors are increasing, and if JD.com is still profitable, its own pressure is also increasing. So Liu Qiangdong had to make JD.com profitable, and since the end of last year, Liu Qiangdong has begun to carry out internal reforms. Now it seems that the reform is also immediate, by controlling costs, JD.com has indeed made a profit, and the profit is still a lot, and the report card of nearly 30 billion is indeed eye-catching.
For Liu Qiangdong, he will also be a big winner this time. Because JD.com finally gave a brilliant result, and it seems that this profit is also sustainable. In the future, JD.com's market value will maintain a steady rise, which is absolutely expected. Then the market value of Jingdong has risen, and Liu Qiangdong, the largest shareholder, is a big winner.
Liu currently holds nearly 14% of JD.com, and he has more than 70% of the voting rights. But Liu Qiangdong is a big winner, but Tencent has become a big loser. Why do you say that?
Because Tencent was originally the largest shareholder of JD.com. Before JD.com went public in 2014, Tencent made an unprecedented investment in JD.com, Tencent gave JD.com its original assets such as Paipai.com and Yixun.com, and added cash to WeChat entrance and other resources, and obtained more than 20% of JD.com's shares.
Subsequently, Tencent also became the largest shareholder of JD.com. In 2021, Tencent was still JD.com's largest shareholder, holding about 17% of the shares. JD.com's initial market capitalization was only $30 billion. However, after the listing, the market value has risen steadily, although it fell to more than $20 billion in 2018, but then JD.com ran all the way.
At its peak in 2021, JD.com's market capitalization had exceeded $150 billion. Then Tencent made a surprising decision to distribute the 460 million JD shares held by their company to Tencent's shareholders when they paid dividends in the middle of the year.
At that time, these 460 million JD shares were worth more than 100 billion yuan. This unprecedented huge dividend also caused a sensation in the market that year. On the day Tencent announced the news, Tencent's stock price skyrocketed, and JD.com's stock price plummeted.
After the dividend, Tencent only holds 2.3% of the shares and has become a minority shareholder, while JD.com's largest shareholder has become Liu Qiangdong personally. Now that most of the shares held by Tencent have been divided, whether the market value of JD.com rises or falls in the future has little to do with Tencent.
So why did Tencent suddenly empty JD.com's stock with this dividend after investing in JD.com for many years? In fact, Tencent's investment in JD.com is mainly a financial investment, and the ultimate purpose of Tencent's money is to return Tencent's shareholders.
Now they distribute JD.com's shares to shareholders, so they also return shareholders. In fact, Tencent not only divided JD.com's shares, they also distributed Meituan's shares to shareholders. I have to say that being a shareholder of Tencent is really too happy.
Now JD.com's profits have soared, and the pressure has also been given to Ali. Today, Alibaba's market capitalization is only half that of Tencent. Ali is not a small pressure, because the growth of Pinduoduo, in fact, is grabbing the market of Ali's low-end customers, and the main consumption upgrade done by JD.com actually has little impact on him.
In the coming year, there will definitely be a big war in China's e-commerce market.